Related posts:

This entry was posted on Friday, July 26th, 2013 at 11:00 am and is filed under New Zealand.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One of the initiatives was a text message service that reminded people when their parking meter was about to run out, and gave them the option of topping up via their phone.

I cannot fathom how they would make that work with on street pay and display parking, currently the way you indicate you parking validity is a little piece of printed plastic you place on your dashboard, If you are not near the car there is no way to change this and Parking wardens use this to determine whether you get a ticket,

Now the only way to remotely increase you parking is to some how send a message to “central parking” and hence to all of the parking wardens remote units ( are they even all online?) that you have added extra money, – It sound wonderful in theory, but in practice it will be a nightmare,

DPF, @Grendel is right. The facility is already available as phone2park.co.nz in Wellington. you should check it out.

Only issue is you have to pre-load an account with the cash.

If in central Welly I just text P30 W01 – for park 30 mins in zone 1 and it will send you a reminder text when about to expire. You can reply with say P15 W01 and it will add 15 minutes on. Text stop when you get back to your car and it credits back the unused portion.

You have a card with a QR code on your screen so the wardens can scan to see if you’ve paid. When you register they post the card to you along with the plastic sleeve for your windscreen. You can register multiple cars and they will send multiple cards.

Isn’t half the point of the meters that it helps create parking for other people, not just revenue gathering? If the early bird parkers can just top up remotely, how does that make parking available for others to use? Deep pockets will just dig deep.